Second Skype Meeting

Today is the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war and yesterday Alessia, Ann and I talked about terrorism and politics in Italy and America. We started making some questions to Ann about how she feels about terrorism and what has changed in the United States after 9/11. She told us that security measures have generally increased everywhere, above all in the airports. She went back home for the spring break and she had to arrive at the airport three hours early because of all security controls. Another consequence of this situation is represented by the creation of bad stereotypes regarding muslim people and Arabian in general. This happens not only in America but also here in Italy and in Europe in general, I think, because we know that religious extremists of the Middle East hate the western part of the world for various reasons. Then she asked us if we knew other types of terrorism existing in Europe and we told her about the "anni di piombo" in Italy during the seventies and about ETA in Spain.

Then we started talking about elections and politics in general and we expressed our feelings about the present situation. Many politicians here are corrupted and sentenced to prison but they keep their positions thanks to their privileges and this is not fair. Some time ago the governor of New York Elliot Spitzer was caught in a sex scandal and he resigned. Ann told that he was always talking about morality and family but his actions prove that he was not who people tought he was; we vote for people we trust but most times they leave us disappointed.

This skype meeting was more useful to me than the last because I could speak more in English; Ann was very nice and in spite of our topic of conversation we laughed a lot. She had some difficulties with Italian language but I hope she could understand most of the things Alessia and I said. This exchange is becoming more and more interesting and I think I will have learnt lots of thing from my American peers by the end of this academic year.

Questionnaires

I think that the questionnaires were an interesting way to provoke useful discussions about different topics. Through word association and sentence completion you can see what people from different cultures think about the world, people, politics and other contemporary issues. In some cases there are clear differences but sometimes we seem to have a lot of things in common. The first example I can think of regards the answers about "people from the south". Many of us said that they are cheerful and hospitable but there were also negative comment saying that they don't like to work and are more relaxed. Americans in their responses seem to be very worried not to give stereotyped definitions but in many cases their answers coincide with Italians'. Another field in which we seem to have pretty much the same ideas is politics. Negative words strongly prevail over positive ones.

It is also interesting to see what they think about us and our lifestyle: we appear very similar to their people from the south (relaxed, take it easy), but I think that this image is mainly influenced by the fact that Italians depicted through movies and TV series are people from the south. Personally, I think that Italian people from the north are very different from the stereotyped image Americans have.

I think that through next conversations on skype we will come to know other things about American culture and we will have the possibility to deepen our discussion about stereotypes and false beliefs about each other's culture and way of life.

Skype!

Last tuesday we did our first Skype session and I have to say that it was really fun. Unfortunately I couldn't speak English a lot because in the first half of the lesson I didn't have the password to login, and I could join the conversation between Marina and Michelle when they started to speak Italian. However there were some words and expressions Michelle couldn't remember and I spoke English in order to help her. We talked about our lessons, parents, movies and our plans for the next future. It was exciting because I had never talked on the phone with an American girl before and I was happy to because I could understand everything she said. It could seem a banal thing but when I watch a movie in English, for example, I always check the actors' mouth movements but on the phone it's obviously impossible! That's why I'm looking forward to do another skype exchange because I want to speak more in English and test my listening skills, learning interesting things about culture and life from our colleagues on the other side of the ocean.